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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22754635">Unexpected Instincts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass'>shatteredhourglass</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Until Dawn (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(Ya Boi's Gotta Eat), Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Facials, Getting Together, Half-Wendigo Josh Washington, Josh Lives, Josh Washington Feels, M/M, POV Josh Washington, Post-Canon, Sexual Content, Underage Drinking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:00:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,389</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22754635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If Chris wanted to fill an Ashley-shaped void he'd be at a bar with a girl, not in the wilderness with a monster masquerading as his best friend. Ashley is pretty and timid, and she likes old romance movies and talking around her feelings instead of spilling them out all over the floor. </p><p>Josh is the opposite of all those things.</p><p>"You're pretty," Chris says out of nowhere, and Josh wonders how much of that he said out loud. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chris Hartley/Josh Washington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>210</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unexpected Instincts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I forgot the drinking age was 21 in America and had a small crisis. *Pokes UD fandom with a stick to see if anyone's alive.*</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The world outside is cold.</p><p>Josh knows this objectively, but he doesn’t feel it (not anymore.) He feels the warmth coming off the gas heater easily enough - a vast improvement over the fireplace, because the last time that had been lit it had taken him <em>weeks</em> to get comfortable enough to walk through the door - but the winter doesn’t affect him. He’s got one hand pressed against the frosted glass of the window. Where his skin is pressed up against it, he can feel the smoothness of the surface and nothing else.</p><p>There’s a loud shriek in the distance. It’s somewhere in the trees, he thinks.</p><p>It doesn’t matter. They don’t dare come close enough to the cabin. The other monsters know he’s here, and they know that the only thing waiting them here is death. Josh isn’t as lenient as Hannah was about their presence.</p><p>Hannah was probably lonely, though. She only had the others for company - she didn’t have a choice, and the thought still makes him flood with helpless rage. If Josh was alone, he’d likely be worse than Hannah was at the end.</p><p>He’s not, though.</p><p>“Why don’t they come in here?”</p><p>He turns away from the window. “Me,” he rasps, doesn’t elaborate.</p><p>The only way he still knows what the weather is like is because of the shifting lump of blankets on the couch, and the increasingly dissatisfied noises coming from it. A puff of blond hair appears from the top of the blankets and Josh takes that as his cue to wander towards the heater, feel around for the button to turn it up higher.</p><p>He looks back as the lump ripples, and then Chris appears in the blankets. He’s peeled them all back and rolled sideways, and when Josh blinks away the orange blur in his vision he can see the soft curves of Chris’s body underneath his pajamas. He can also see the very obvious space Chris has left, big enough to fit someone a little bigger than him.</p><p>It’s an invitation.</p><p>Josh finds him a hot water bottle.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Fuck,” Chris mutters. “Fuck, shit.”</p><p>For a second Josh thinks the swearing is in reference to him, but when he drops the mouthful of dead rat (awful, what was he thinking) in the sink and Chris doesn’t comment he realizes it isn’t.</p><p>How about that. He’s aware enough to lick the blood and meat from his lips before he approaches - makes sure his footsteps are loud enough to echo, never sneaking up, can’t do that to Chris anymore - and then he sees that Chris is working on a laptop.</p><p>Josh peers over his shoulder curiously. Words are harder to make sense of nowadays, but he understands the pictures just fine. The pictures contain diagrams of structures, strange-looking icons that he doesn’t recognize, and he remembers that Chris was angling for a degree in app design before everything.</p><p>“Solid C student,” Chris tells him. “You think I should give up and become a flamethrower-wielding hermit?”</p><p>Josh gives into the urge to drape his arms over Chris’s chest without replying, turns so his nose is pressed against the warm skin under Chris’s ear. He smells like deodorant and human (and <em>alive, </em>a strange scent that clings to the back of Josh’s throat.)</p><p>Chris doesn’t comment on it.</p><p>He’d been- what <em>had </em>he been studying, before? He was on so many drugs it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, but it would’ve been nice to be able to remember. Josh makes an inadvertent, sharp clicking in the back of his throat and Chris must misinterpret it as curiosity. (Why isn’t he freaked out by it?)</p><p>“Online courses are pretty good, bud,” he says. “Your parents jacked up the internet, it’s pretty fancy.”</p><p>Hmm.</p><p>Josh doesn’t talk to his parents, but sometimes they Skype with Chris and he’ll lurk in the background just enough to be recognized. (Can’t show them his <em>face</em>, after all, the jagged mess of teeth and the silver gleam in his eyes, the blood that sticks to his chin unless Chris swipes at it with a cloth.) His mother just seems happy that someone’s taking care of him - someone who <em>isn’t </em>her. He can’t really blame her for it. Even <em>he </em>doesn’t want to take care of himself.</p><p>“You ever think about going back to finish your psychology stuff?”</p><p>Oh, <em>that’s </em>what he was doing. Ironic.</p><p>“Nah,” he says, making a conscious effort to speak. “Wouldn’t have as much time for your needy ass, then.”</p><p>Chris snorts softly at that, like he thinks it’s a joke. Josh doesn’t bother with telling him otherwise, just stays curled over Chris’s shoulders like a cape made of hair and flesh and bone. He doesn’t feel like he has a place outside of this anymore - outside of the howling wind, the howling monsters and the blood in his mouth (and <em>Chris</em>, always Chris.) He’s glad Chris has a connection to the outside world, though.</p><p>“We should get a decent TV up here,” Chris says. “Think your parents would foot the bill?”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Josh remembers - he <em>knows </em>that he was shorter than Chris, before.</p><p>Chris hadn’t known the depths of his psychotic episodes then. He hadn’t known about the pills that refused to work or the countless therapists that looked at him with thinly-veiled anxiety or the blank white rooms his parents had paid too much money for. There had been the bad days where he’d spent his time with Chris as well, though, and those were still tinted with sunshine and warmth.</p><p>He’d show up at Chris’s house with a bottle of tequila in his hand and a fake smile plastered on his face. Chris would just take one look at him and curl an arm over his shoulders, pull him in close, and Josh would be short enough to tuck himself into Chris’s side and stay there, pretend it wasn’t anything more than what it was.</p><p>Now he’s too long, too angular. His knees don’t bend in quite the same way and if he stands up straighter than he’s at least a full foot over Chris.</p><p>It feels <em>wrong</em>.</p><p>“Whoa,” Chris says as Josh clambers on top of him, accidentally tearing holes into the couch.</p><p>He doesn’t even look surprised by the assault and Josh thinks that’s probably <em>bad</em>, that Chris lets his guard down like this around someone who could slit his throat with barely an effort. It doesn’t matter in this moment. He’s more interested in curling himself into as small a space as he can manage in Chris’s lap, tucking his face up under Chris’s chin.</p><p>Chris steadies him with a hand rather than pushing him off, careful touches to make sure Josh won’t fall. It wouldn’t matter if he <em>did </em>fall, but apparently it matters enough for Chris to make an effort.</p><p>They sit there for a while. There’s plenty of free space on the couch - more than enough for one full-sized man and a half-man half-monster, but neither of them say anything about it. All the free space in the world couldn’t tempt him away from this moment.</p><p>It’s <em>nice</em>. Why haven’t they done this before?</p><p>“Chris,” he says after a while. He’s bad at keeping track of time. “You and Ash- what happened?”</p><p>Chris sags a little bit at the question and Josh tucks himself even closer, like he can somehow block out the sadness with his own body. He’s not sure if it’s a human instinct or something else.</p><p>“Everyone expected us to get together,” Chris says eventually. “I guess I just went along with it, and then we actually <em>tried </em>and it was… it didn’t work.”</p><p>“...did you sleep with her?”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Josh croaks. All that chaos, and it hadn’t even had the one positive effect he’d been hoping for. Chris and Ashley were supposed to be the Romeo and Juliet of the prank - minus the death - and Chris was supposed to be the tragic hero, the golden boy. He wonders if Chris is just here because it didn’t work with Ashley.</p><p>Except that'd be silly, because there's no way he could possibly be a replacement for Ashley. If Chris wanted to fill an Ashley-shaped void he'd be at a bar with a girl, not in the wilderness with a monster masquerading as his best friend. Ashley is pretty and timid, and she likes old romance movies and talking around her feelings instead of spilling them out all over the floor. </p><p>Josh is the <em>opposite </em>of all those things.</p><p>"You're pretty," Chris says out of nowhere, and Josh wonders how much of that he said out loud. </p><p>"I don't put out on the first date just 'cause you're a sweet talker, Cochise," he answers when he remembers how his mouth works. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The deer screams when he tears into its throat.</p><p>Josh makes sure it dies quickly. It’s food, not an opportunity to torture (what would Chris think of him?) and prey is easier to drag back to the cabin when it isn’t struggling. He’s fast enough that it didn’t even get a step away from him before it died.</p><p>There’s always blood on his hands nowadays.</p><p>He spends so long staring out into the distance that when he blinks, there’s movement in the distance. There’s no way it could be Chris - he hates leaving the cabin at night, and if he needs something they have phones with the sound turned right up. Josh squints and the shape flickers, jumps closer in a familiar way.</p><p>It’s a mistake.</p><p>The other’s mistake, not his. The scent of blood has lured it in close enough that it can’t escape from him without leading back to the others - and what’s left of the miners are a pack, unlike Josh. Hannah’s voice whispers comfort at him as he grabs the other by the throat and throws it against a tree. It screams at him and Josh screams back, something in his stomach unwinding as he tears at limbs and white, unseeing eyes.</p><p>Instinct commands he protect his territory and his prey with violence but the sharp clench in his chest is from thinking about any of them laying a single claw on Chris, and that part is pure overprotective, lovesick <em>human</em>.</p><p>Josh isn’t supposed to give in to that part, though.</p><p>Then he takes the deer by the antlers and starts dragging it back.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He returns to the cabin through the window and drops silently from the ceiling (he shouldn't <em>do </em>that, it freaks Chris out) and sets down the books he'd found in the mines on the table.</p><p>It's hard to look at things without tracking for movement instead of seeing when he’s still keyed up, but Josh manages to get his vision under control for long enough to confirm Chris isn't here. A quick glance at the clock confirms it's three in the morning, and he strips off his clothing as he wanders down the hall, kicks his pants off in the doorway. He’s not sure why he bothers with pants anymore.</p><p>Chris is lying on the bed with a sheet strewn haphazardly over his body, glasses on the floor.</p><p>Whether they've been knocked or if Chris threw them there is irrelevant. Josh collects them and puts them aside safely before he clambers onto the bed. </p><p>Chris doesn't stir as he pushes up the mattress, worms his way under the sheet and up Chris's warm body until they're pressed together.</p><p>He knows he's probably cold from wandering around in the night and cold is <em>not </em>fun, not for Chris and the things he’s witnessed. It doesn't stop him, though, doesn't quell the craving to rest his cheek on Chris's bare chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart. There's something instinctively comforting about it, something that makes him want to set up camp and shriek at anything that dares come close. </p><p>"Teeth," Chris says without opening his eyes.</p><p>Josh turns so the jagged remains of the left side of his face isn’t pressing up against Chris’s skin.</p><p>There’s only one bed in the cabin. It’s not the lodge, after all. Neither of them have it in themselves to complain - and if Josh is honest then he’s going to have to admit he likes it, the bed sharing. (It’s not safe, he <em>shouldn’t</em>.) The deer carcass outside vanishes from his mind and Chris goes silent again.</p><p>Chris doesn’t even complain that Josh is squashing him. Either he doesn’t care about it or he craves the skin-to-skin contact as much as Josh does.</p><p>It’s weird that they haven’t done anything like this before. It’s weird that it took <em>nearly dying </em>(nearly being a tentative word, because Josh isn’t sure if the human inside him is just dead anyway) for them to even try something beyond a casual bro hug. It’s… really nice, actually.</p><p>Chris is <em>warm</em>.</p><p>For the first time in a while, Josh feels a little warmer too.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Sam’s messaging me,” Chris says. “You want to pass anything onto her?”</p><p>“The only thing I’ve got is ‘sorry’ and I don’t think that’s the kind of thing she wants to hear from me, bro. Better to just keep me out of it,” Josh comments.</p><p>He gives up on his half-hearted attempt to cook the deer meat a second later and picks it out of the pan with his claws, the blood still leaking out of it. Putting it on a plate makes it slightly better. He feels bad about doing it in front of Chris when he has the awareness to do so. Chris starts typing something back to Sam and Josh snags a bag of chips on his way to the couch, deposits it in Chris’s lap.</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p><em>Anything for you</em>, he means to say, but it comes out as another off-key clicking noise.</p><p>He clears his throat. Chris opens the chips one-handed and Josh pokes at his slab of meat absently. There’s still typing happening but it’s not like he can read it over Chris’s shoulder, so he eats, and tries not to think too hard about the things he nearly did to Sam. Sam was the safest from his prank out of everyone (she’d loved Hannah as much as he had and Hannah had loved her too) but he’s still not expecting anything.</p><p>He doesn’t expect anything from Chris either, though, and Chris is still here. (Does he want something?)</p><p>“She says hi. She’s glad that I could find you,” Chris says. “You think I should be honest and tell her that <em>you </em>found me?”</p><p>“Nah,” Josh manages. “You be the hero, Cochise.”</p><p>Chris doesn’t comment on that. His face does a strange thing but he keeps typing at the keyboard, and there’s a cheerful ding from his computer when Sam replies. “She wants to visit us in the summer if we’re still here,” Chris says.</p><p>Will they still be here? Josh can’t leave (how is he going to manage being out in the world again) but Chris could. Chris could leave any time he wanted to, really, just pack up and go back to the reality of classes and girlfriends and life. But Chris had also said the words <em>we </em>and <em>us</em>, which implies that they’re some kind of a package deal.</p><p>Josh realizes in that moment that he desperately <em>wants </em>them to be a package deal.</p><p>“Josh? Hey man, you’re spacing out again.”</p><p>“Sorry,” he rasps. “What did you-?”</p><p>“Sam. Do you- would you want to see her if she came?” The computer dings again and Chris glances back at it, a ghost of a smile appearing on his face. “She says she’ll bring the new spicy skittles for you.”</p><p>He used to like skittles. He used to like <em>Sam</em>.</p><p>“We can- we can try,” Josh says.</p><p>“Okay,” Chris says.</p><p>“You can’t- I don’t want you to leave me alone with her.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He calls Mike.</p><p>It’s mostly because he doesn’t have anyone else to call. The panic crawls slow and uncertain into his throat until it’s nearly suffocating him and then he’s scrambling onto the roof while Chris is asleep and tapping uselessly at his phone. His hands are still warm from where he’d been curled around Chris. He’s not sure he can even call Mike, but he doesn’t have any other options.</p><p>“’llo?”</p><p>Josh tries to speak and it comes out as a high-pitched, incomprehensible chitter.</p><p>“Look, if this is a fuckin’ prank it’s not funny,” Mike says. He sounds tired, maybe a little threatening. Josh’s stomach flops over inside his skin and he has to switch hands so he can press his knuckles against his eyelids.</p><p>“I need help,” he ends up saying, and it comes out pitiful.</p><p>“Who the fuck are- <em>Josh?</em>”</p><p>Mike swears and Josh cringes. He’s got one awkwardly-held finger ready to press the red button and then he hears a soft murmur in the background. Mike answers the voice immediately, although the words get lost in the static of Josh’s brain. <em>Jess</em>. He still remembers the shed, the gun (Jessica is fucking <em>dead </em>and you killed her) and when he blinks his eyes open again they feel suspiciously wet.</p><p>“Mike,” he says again.</p><p>“I think it’s really him,” Mike says, presumably to Jessica. “Josh, I’m putting you on speaker, buddy.”</p><p>“Josh?” Jess is a little more tentative. Her voice is rougher than he remembers, like she’s taken a hit to the vocal chords. He gets what that’s like, at least. “Are you still up on the mountain?” They’re both softer than he expects - a little worried, maybe, and the concern in their voices is what rattles it out of him.</p><p>“I think I’m in love with Chris,” he blurts out.</p><p>There’s a long beat of silence, long enough that Josh thinks they’ve hung up on him, and then Mike starts to <em>laugh</em>. Jessica doesn’t join in but it’s still bewildering enough that whatever negative feelings he was having before this moment disappear and he just ends up <em>confused</em>. There’s a soft thump and then a muttered curse a second later.</p><p>“All the fucking things we’ve seen, and he calls us because he’s having a gay panic,” Mike says incredulously.</p><p>“Mike, honey? Shush,” Jess says. “This is the only good gossip I’ve heard in the last year. Not that I didn’t already get a bit of a bi vibe from you, but I’d like to know more about Josh and Chris.”</p><p>“Is it that big a deal? I already thought Chris was-”</p><p>“Shush,” Jess repeats. “We’re listening to Josh now.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Chris says when Josh stumbles in (through the front <em>door </em>this time - an improvement.) “Everything okay? You’re not normally out in the mornings.”</p><p>“Fine,” he rasps. “You worried about me, bro? That’s sweet.”</p><p>“I don’t <em>stop </em>worrying about you,” Chris mutters. Josh isn’t meant to overhear that one, so he pretends that he hasn’t. Chris rattles some cereal into a bowl and Josh drops into a corner where he can see the whole room without turning his head. He feels a little less shaky after the phone conversation, and he tucks it into the pocket of his puffer vest. (Vests are easier than shirts, sometimes.)</p><p>“I was talking to Jess ‘n Mike,” he says, decides to at least give Chris that much. It comes out a little garbled and lispy, but Chris’s eyes light up with recognition anyway. (Secrets feel wrong.)</p><p>“Jess? I haven’t spoken to her since-” Chris frowns. “Before, I think. She okay?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Josh says. “She’s- yeah.”</p><p>She’s quieter than he remembers her being, for sure. Subdued. She’s still Jess, though - still teasing him and trying to pry deeper into the mess of his feelings for Chris in the name of good gossip. Josh regrets what happened to her even if the memory of the prank still fills him with a burning fury.</p><p>She didn’t deserve to be attacked any more than Chris deserves to be stuck with a half-human mess of a companion. (Chris <em>chose </em>to come back, though. And he keeps choosing to stay.)</p><p>Chris makes a thoughtful noise and eats his cereal. Josh is convinced there’s going to be some kind of interrogation, is expecting Chris to demand to know why he’d been calling Jessica and Mike - who he isn’t <em>that </em>close to, in the scheme of things - at an early hour of the morning when he usually won’t even leave the cabin.</p><p>“It’s great that you’re talking to people, man,” Chris says after a while. “Even if it <em>is </em>Jess.”</p><p>Belatedly, Josh realizes that it <em>had </em>been kind of nice. Huh. All that anger and plotting he’d been holding onto because of Hannah and Beth, and it’s all trickled away in the last few months like grains of sand between his fingers. Vaguely, he remembers that he determined <em>not </em>to let go of it before the prank.</p><p>"I didn’t think you were coming back from how you were in the shed," Chris says as he dumps a bowl in the sink, apropos of nothing. (That, or he’s missed part of the conversation.)</p><p>Josh blinks at him. "I think," he starts, and he's not sure how to finish. Does he talk about the fact that he feels Hannah sometimes, steadying him from the inside? Does he say that he's so broken he came all the way around to okay again? Does he admit that it's Chris, because it's <em>always </em>Chris? </p><p>“Guess wendigos can’t have psychotic episodes,” Chris says, more to himself than to Josh, before he looks up. There’s more concern and care in his eyes than fear. (Stupid. Even Josh knows he’s a ticking time bomb.) “Are you- <em>do </em>you?”</p><p>Does he hallucinate anymore? Sometimes he thinks he’s hallucinating this whole thing. The hilarious part is that the whole monstrous transformation seems more sensible than the idea of Chris being here with him, letting him get close even after everything.</p><p><em>I think I’ve been in love with you this whole time,</em> he thinks, won’t let it past his throat.</p><p>He wants to kiss Chris.</p><p>He <em>can’t </em>kiss Chris.</p><p>(He’s scared.)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“<em>Josh</em>,” Chris calls from the cabin, and Josh picks his head up from the mine shaft he’d been sniffing around. He’s a fair distance away from it - far enough that he has to intercept another creature that gets curious about the yelling. His fingers tear into its stomach like it’s made of warm butter and then he barrels towards the cabin, the fear sticking in his throat.</p><p>He breaks the door trying to get in. It falls to the floor with a thump and he swivels around with red-tinted vision, desperately inhaling through his nose for blood.</p><p>“Woah, man,” Chris says. “Deep breaths, Josh.”</p><p>(If Chris is <em>hurt, </em>Josh is going to- he’ll-)</p><p>His voice comes out as a screech. Chris flinches at it, and that’s what makes him inhale shakily through his nose and blink back the colours in his eyes.</p><p>Chris isn’t hurt. He’s just standing by the couch in a pair of Zelda-themed boxers and a thick orange sweater with a bottle in his hand. His eyes are a wide behind his glasses like he’s taken aback by Josh’s sudden (violent) appearance, and Josh realizes he’s crouching low to the ground like he’s about to pounce. He casts around for any danger.</p><p>There’s nothing. He straightens up.</p><p>“Jeez, Washington,” Chris says.</p><p>“Sorry.” (He says that too much.)</p><p>Josh doesn’t move from the doorway - his heart’s beating too fast for comfort, and he can’t quite get his legs to move. He tries to grit his teeth against the adrenaline slamming through his system and just ends up making his gums bleed, tastes metal. Chris is looking at him with slightly less concern.</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>“It’s- thought you were in trouble,” Josh manages.</p><p>“Oh,” Chris says. “I thought…”</p><p>There’s a screech from somewhere in the distance and Josh whips around. It’s not close enough to be a problem, though. He still steps inside the cabin properly and props the door in the frame as much as he can. Chris doesn’t say anything while he tries to fix it and when Josh turns around he’s gotten closer than expected.</p><p>“Do you ever want to eat me?”</p><p>Josh swallows hard. It’s the question he’s been expecting (and dreading) for a while. “I,” he starts, and his voice cracks a little. “When we were down in the mines and I didn’t know it was you, I was. I followed you.”</p><p>“And?”</p><p>“And I smelled your shitty deodorant,” he says. “You really gotta get something better, bro, or the ladies will never talk to you again.”</p><p>“You’re dodging the question,” Chris says. Somehow he’s gotten close enough that Josh can see the flecks of green in his eyes. It’s more intense than Josh is expecting. It’s <em>too </em>intense. He’s not sure what Chris is doing right now. He can smell the burn of vodka - maybe that’s what’s going on. Maybe Chris is just drunk.</p><p>(Can’t hurt, then.)</p><p>“No,” he breathes. “No, I don’t want to eat you. I want-” He breaks off sharply because Chris’s face is getting alarmingly close now.</p><p>It’s not quite a kiss. It’s not <em>not </em>a kiss, though, because Chris’s mouth is on his. It’s awkward and terrible and his jagged mess of teeth get in the way but <em>damn </em>if Chris isn’t trying, and that’s what makes it the best not-quite kiss Josh has ever had. He’s too scared to do anything in return, and then he inhales and smells the vodka again.</p><p>“No,” he says, pushing Chris back by his shoulders. “No, you’re- you’re drunk.”</p><p>“Still want to do it,” Chris says. Josh isn’t so sure. (It feels like they’ve been heading towards this but he still can’t fathom why Chris would <em>want </em>to.)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He manages to wrestle Chris into bed - physically it isn’t <em>hard</em>, but he feels weird about the manhandling. Eventually he ends up with Chris laying on the mattress with his head on Josh’s lap, because a drunk Chris is a clingy Chris and Josh is too soft to push him away. God, he’s in deep. Jessica was right, this is a mess.</p><p>“Why did you yell earlier?”</p><p>“Wanted to offer you a drink,” Chris says. “You still like vodka?”</p><p>Josh doubts that alcohol can even affect him now. The monsters don’t need water and neither does he, technically. There’s no appeal if he can’t get drunk. He means to say <em>eh </em>and it comes out as another of those clicking noises. The point still gets across, he’s pretty sure.</p><p>“Can I kiss you <em>tomorrow</em>?”</p><p>Josh sighs and it makes his over-sharp canines hurt. He doesn’t like being the responsible one. “Why weren’t you this confident with any of the girls you tried to woo in high school, huh, Casanova?”</p><p>“Didn’t like them,” Chris mutters. It’s a lie, surely - except how many times had Chris blown off a girl to hang out with him? “Like <em>you</em>.”</p><p>Fucking hell, that’s too many feelings for one in the morning. When he’d panicked over the phone, Josh had been adamant that he couldn’t do anything about it. He’d been worried about risking Chris’s company, he hadn’t expected that <em>Chris </em>would try something himself.</p><p>"I'm not right," Josh croaks. "Chris, bro, I'm fucked up."</p><p>"Yeah," Chris says. "Me too."</p><p>He rolls over so his face is turned into Josh's too-bony thigh, doesn't elaborate beyond that. </p><p>Josh can't find a reply to that (how is he meant to reply to that?) so he just rubs his fingers along a spot behind Chris's ear, careful not to scrape his claws too hard.</p><p>He's been so preoccupied with his own state that he'd never considered that maybe Chris has something dark and tainted inside of him too, wonders if it was there before Josh decided to tear everything apart. Looking back, maybe it was. He should've been there. He should've been fighting off Chris's monsters the same way Chris had fought off literal monsters for him. </p><p>“Didn’t want to face the world anymore without you,” he thinks Chris says. (Must have misheard.)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Josh expects Chris to forget about last night.</p><p>Somehow he falls asleep sitting slumped against the headboard with Chris’s head in his lap. He doesn’t sleep much anymore (at all) and when he comes back to wakefulness he’s still got his knuckles pressed against Chris’s cheek gently, which makes this doubly strange. His neck aches from the weird angle he’s fallen asleep at.</p><p>Josh blinks blearily down at Chris.</p><p>Somewhere in the night Chris has curled himself around Josh’s legs and now it’s hard to tell what’s going on down there. Chris’s lips are parted as he snores quietly, and his sweater has ridden up enough for his stomach to be exposed. He looks so <em>soft </em>like this, and Josh is just hard angles and sharp bones and bloody teeth.</p><p>That softness had kissed him last night. He reaches up to touch his own lips faintly, feeling how <em>off </em>it is.</p><p>“This is nice,” Chris mumbles.</p><p>Josh makes the clicking noise again.</p><p>“Ugh. I need to brush my teeth,” Chris says, rolls off the mattress and stumbles off in the direction of the bathroom. He doesn’t close the door behind him but Josh looks in the other direction anyway, just in case. The taps turn on a second later. He thinks about going to sit in the snow for a while to calm the way his heart seems to be beating off-key.</p><p>He doesn’t get there.</p><p>“You coming?”</p><p>“-what?”</p><p>“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Chris says, and even though the door is blocking Josh from seeing anything explicit it’s still extremely obvious that he’s <em>naked</em>. “I’m not drunk now, though.”</p><p>He shouldn’t. He <em>can’t</em>.</p><p>Josh scrambles to get his vest off so fast that he rips it in two.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“You can kiss back, y’know,” Chris tells him.</p><p>There’s water droplets sticking to his eyelashes and Josh is half-tempted to lick them off for some reason he can’t fathom. They’ve been naked together before but nothing with the kind of <em>intent </em>that’s reflected in Chris’s eyes, nothing that was more than two guys who’ve known each other since they were children. (Nothing that they’d talked about, anyway.)</p><p>“Not risking it, Cochise,” Josh says hoarsely.</p><p>There’s too much danger with his teeth. He’s not even sure <em>how </em>to kiss properly when his face is like this. Chris licks his lips and Josh’s gaze is immediately drawn to the movement (it’s him, it can’t be the monster.) Josh has his fingers very, <em>very </em>carefully curled around Chris’s hips. It’s the only point of contact he’s initiated because he’s hyper-aware that he could potentially harm Chris.</p><p>“Okay,” Chris agrees.</p><p>He just <em>accepts </em>it and Josh is expecting him to give up on this endeavour altogether, get out of the warm spray of water and fumble for his glasses and clothes. Instead he’s surprised when Chris leans in closer so their skin is nearly brushing, and then his lips press against Josh’s jaw, drift down to suck at his pulse point. Josh has already tilted his face to accommodate the movement automatically, but he’s not expecting the rush of heat that floods him.</p><p>He’s not expecting to <em>like </em>it this much.</p><p>“’s not gonna bruise,” he manages, when Chris continues exploring with his mouth. “I don’t-”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter,” Chris says. “You want me to stop?”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Josh says emphatically, like it’s been punched out of him. It’s nearly a shout and Chris twitches minutely - why he’s decided to do this in the shower where he can’t see properly, where he’s <em>vulnerable</em>, Josh doesn’t know.</p><p>(Trust?)</p><p>Either way Chris shrugs to himself and goes back to what he was doing, gently pushing Josh’s back against the tiles. Josh tips his head back and thinks about a joke he’d made about Chris not having any game, back before everything else. Apparently Chris <em>does </em>have game, but just when it’s him.</p><p>Chris’s teeth scrape his nipple - not enough to hurt, not even <em>close </em>- and maybe he did die down in the mines because there’s no way he deserves this in the real world. Josh can’t breathe. He’s so turned on it feels like his skin is ablaze. He hadn’t even realized that he <em>could </em>get aroused anymore and here he is now, so hard he could drill through steel.</p><p>The moan that slips out his mouth is fully human, no hint of monster in it.</p><p>He’s pretty sure Chris hasn’t touched someone like this before - confident or not, his hands are still shaking a little - but apparently he remembers all those drunk conversations about where Josh’s hot spots are because he’s hitting every single one.</p><p>No one’s even <em>hugged </em>him in months. That’s his excuse for why Chris’s fingertips barely brush his dick, lips against his throat before Josh is shaking and shuddering his way through something that might’ve been an orgasm. All he knows is that he can’t breathe.</p><p>“Wow,” Chris says. “Uh. Was that-”</p><p>“Shut up,” Josh mutters.</p><p>“I’m taking it as a compliment, bro.”</p><p>“Shut <em>up</em>.”</p><p>The water’s gone cold, he’s pretty sure. (Chris looks cold.)</p><p>Josh feels warmer now, weirdly.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t matter if you can’t… y’know. Reciprocate. I can take care of myself,” Chris says once they’re a little drier and back in the bedroom. He’s put his glasses back on and that’s it, and now there’s no water to distract Josh from the sight of Chris’s dick. Chris is still hard, as it turns out.</p><p>It’s… an impressive dick.</p><p>There’s a problem with reciprocation, though. Chris is right. Josh can’t do anything - his mouth is too sharp, his teeth are too sharp, his fingers are ground into sharp points. Chris is fragile. Josh isn’t made for the soft lovemaking that he wants to give Chris, not anymore. (And he <em>wants </em>to.)</p><p>The best he can do is stumble over and drop to his knees at Chris’s feet, clawed hands curled against his own thighs. It’s a nice view. Josh isn’t sure it’ll be a decent compromise until he sees Chris’s eyes dilate <em>hard, </em>black swallowing up the blue in his irises. Clearly he finds <em>something </em>about it to be attractive, Josh on his knees with his mouth as close as it’s getting to Chris’s erection.</p><p>That means he finds <em>Josh </em>attractive.</p><p>It’s like being punched in the stomach in the best kind of way. He knows retrospectively that Chris has to be attracted to him because he wouldn’t be <em>doing </em>this if he wasn’t. It’s still shocking.</p><p>“Now do it,” he says roughly. “Please.”</p><p>Chris bites his lip. His hand circles around his dick a second later, pumps slow and tantalizing. God, he made all those porn star jokes about Jess and Mike without realizing the star was right here all along. Josh licks his lips instinctively and Chris makes a noise.</p><p>Maybe he’s imagining all the things Josh could be doing here, if fate (and Josh himself) hadn’t fucked them over.</p><p>"I used to dream about blowing you. Getting my mouth on your dick, teasing you until you started fucking my face," he says. Flicks his gaze up to Chris's face. "No homo."</p><p>He's not sure what the look on his own face is - somewhere between regret and amusement and heat, maybe, that sick swirl of emotion in his gut. Chris is reflecting that look back at him. How much time have they wasted being fucked up when they could've been doing this? </p><p>"This is extremely homo," Chris tells him. ”Kind of the point, bro.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Josh says. “’s hot.”</p><p>He’s struggling with the whole eye contact thing - Chris’s dick is <em>right there</em>, and even though Josh just came part of him is revving to go again. He’s seen people jerk off before but none of them have been <em>Chris </em>and he can’t figure out where to look because oh man, his dick, but Chris’s <em>face </em>is pure porn on top of that.</p><p>There’s no way he can smell arousal. But it <em>feels </em>like he can, sitting here like he’s paid for some kind of private, filthy show as Chris gets off in front of him. His hands clench on his legs as Chris’s hand speeds up, does a dirty twist at the head. Chris makes a bitten-off moan and Josh doesn’t even realize he’s echoed it in Chris’s voice until a few seconds later.</p><p>Chris doesn’t seem to care. (The relief is almost as strong as the fire in his veins.)</p><p>“Josh,” he says breathlessly. “I want this. I want <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“Want you,” Josh repeats, wrestles his vocal muscles back and blurts out the first demand he’s made since Chris came back for him. “Come on my face.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Chris says, movement becoming frantic. “<em>Fuck</em>.”</p><p>He actually <em>does </em>come on Josh’s face then, breathing hard like he’s been in a marathon. Josh is frozen in surprise for a second (shit, he actually did it) and then he licks at his lips, the spots where he can feel Chris’s come on him. It tastes… interesting.</p><p>Chris looks wrecked, though, hair a damp unstyled mess and glasses askew. It’s unfortunately hot. When did his brain decide boobalicious models were out and sweaty, beautiful nerds were in? “Josh? You okay?”</p><p>“...yeah,” Josh croaks. “Y’know, Cochise, I think I am.”</p><p>He’s not <em>good</em>, probably won’t ever be good again, but he can do okay.</p><p>Here, with Chris, he can be okay.</p><p>“You want to say fuck it and go back to bed?”</p><p>“And here I was expecting a fancy dinner and expensive wine. Gotta up your romantic game if you want a sweet lady like me,” Josh says weakly, but when Chris offers him a hand up he takes it.</p><p>Chris’s smile is far too soft for someone like him. It shouldn’t work. He shouldn’t be indulging this kind of behaviour for Chris’s sake, and somehow he still ends up folded into the sheets, Chris spooning around him like he’s the one protecting Josh from the world outside the window and not the other way around.</p><p>Something cracks in Josh’s chest, just a little.</p><p>Luckily Chris is kind enough to pretend like he isn’t crying.</p><p>Josh comes to the realization that if he had to choose between his humanity and this precious, frail thing growing between them, he’d pick Chris a thousand times.</p><p>He’s okay.</p>
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